VA medical center director receives national award

Michelle Gabel/The Post-Standard James Cody, director of the Syracuse Veterans Administration Medical Center, is one of 14 VA executives nationwide recently recognized by President Barack Obama for excellence in public service.

Editorial assistant Desiree Feigel-Dart recently spoke with James Cody, who received the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive.

Name: James Cody

Age: 56

Current address: Jamesville

Originally from: Hicksville

Family: My wife, Lois, and I have twin, 18-year-old daughters, Eileen and Chrissy.

Education: I have a bachelor’s in health education from State Universitry College at Cortland and a master’s in public administration from New York University.

What do you like best about your job? What I like best is that I work for an organization with the best mission of any company in the United States and probably the World; we get to take care of veterans. We have an opportunity to give something back to veterans. I think this is so important because veterans are part of the reason that we have the freedoms and the lifestyles in this great country, and this is just a way to say thank you for their service.

What is the most challenging aspect? Every single veteran deserves our best so the biggest challenge is just ensuring that we have the resources, the people, the equipment and the facilities and the processes to provide the best care and services to each and every veteran who comes to us.

How long have you been involved with the VA and in what capacities? I joined the VA in July of 1978 as a safety technician at the Brooklyn VA and I’ve had various positions of increasing responsibilities over the years and been to seven different sites, including the medical center director here at Syracuse since January 2000.

How did you feel when you received the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive? I was honored and I was quite pleased. I took it as a national recognition of a tremendous achievement of our 1,400 Syracuse VA employees, and they provide timely access to the highest quality care, and they satisfy the expectations of over 40,000 Central New York veterans each year.

Why do you think they chose you? As the leader of such a complex organization of professional staff, it’s my responsibility to ensure that these more than 1,400 professionals work together to provide the best care and services. So the results that we’ve achieved and continue to achieve apparently impressed the committee, and I believe this award recognizes those efforts.

The person who has most inspired you: It’s actually two people, my mother and my father, and while they’re in heaven together now, I do think of them every day and appreciate how much they influenced and shaped the person that I am today.

What do you like best about your community: The resiliency of the people and their can-do attitude just makes this an enjoyable community to work in and raise a family.

If you could change one thing about your community, what would it be? Figuring out a way to enable more people to pursue a healthier lifestyle, somehow motivating them to more exercise, weight control, reduce smoking, reduce stress. I think that would be ideal.

Do you have a key philosophy in life? I believe anything is possible with planning and preparation. If you can envision something happening, just take action and assure that it’ll indeed occur.

What are you most passionate about? It’s actually two things: providing quality health care to our veterans and ensuring my children and wife are healthy and happy.

What do you do in your spare time? I run and I golf. I’ve been running for almost 42 years and I’m golfing just about as long, but I have to admit, I’m more successful at running.

Your favorite time of year: Springtime, because that’s when golf starts again and there’s no more running in the snow.

What was your favorite subject in school? Any one of the sciences — biology, anatomy, physiology, microbiology. I just like learning how things work.

When you were a child, what did you dream about becoming? Probably like most children, I changed it a lot, but I started out that I wanted to be a paleontologist. Then I wanted to be a marine biologist, and then I definitely wanted to be an astronaut. Health care didn’t come along until I was in college.

What can you be found doing on Saturday nights? Probably watching a movie with my wife and children.

The best advice you ever heard: From my father. He told me once that you only pass this way in life once, stop to smell the roses.

One thing about you that would surprise people: That I have a telescope and I love astronomy.

Your biggest accomplishment in life so far?Well, that’s sort of impossible to decide between marrying my wife, Lois, or becoming a father to my twins, Eileen and Chrissy.